McGrath Boulevard

Updated September 21, 2026

What's happening

The project to tear down the McCarthy Viaduct and turn Route 28 into a surface street is running on two clocks, and the second one just slipped. MassDOT's $130 million McGrath Boulevard reconstruction — Broadway at the East Somerville/Winter Hill line south to Squires Bridge — is heading for a 75%/100% design milestone, bidding by late 2027, and shovels in 2028, as Mobility Director Brad Rawson and Senior Transportation Planner Justin Schreiber told the Traffic and Parking Committee on March 16. But the bridge work at the south end is on its own, later track. At a MassDOT public meeting in late July, the team replacing Squires Bridge said its 25% design package goes in this fall, another design hearing is planned for early 2027, and construction "could begin in 2030", running three to four years.

MassDOT says the two will be built concurrently; the council report of the same March update put boulevard construction a year earlier, in 2027, at $20–30 million a year over roughly four years. The corridor is already disruptive. McGrath bridge work and state approval delays were the main reason several 2025 city bike projects went unbuilt, and MassDOT's overnight test boring in the spring was loud enough that the Council passed a resolution about it.

The story

What is being built

The boulevard replaces the elevated viaduct with a slower at-grade street. Rawson's case for a smaller road is traffic counts: Route 28 volumes have fallen to roughly two-thirds of what they were 15 years ago. He called the project the product of "more than twenty years of work."

The Streetsblog Massachusetts account of the July meeting fills in the southern end, a separate MassDOT project running from 3rd Street in Cambridge to just south of Poplar Street. It builds two bridges. Squires Bridge, which carries McGrath over the Fitchburg commuter rail line and the Green Line's Union Square branch in Brickbottom, has been deteriorating for a decade with pieces falling off; it becomes a 300-foot single-span beam bridge shifted slightly east, with no intermediate piers — which, consultant GPI notes, leaves room for a future Grand Junction Community Path connection. Two lanes each way, raised and separated bike lanes, sidewalks, a 7-foot median. Crews rebuild the northbound side first, run three lanes on the old southbound structure, then swap. GPI engineer John Watters: "Projects in urban environments are very difficult, and we endeavor to balance the needs of all the stakeholders."

The second bridge carries Route 28 over a relocated Somerville Avenue Extension — the alley locals call "Scary Way" — pulled away from the tracks to meet Linwood Street at a T, with a two-way bike path beside a single one-way traffic lane.

The fights over the 25% design

The Council's engagement runs through the Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Committee's comment letter on MassDOT's 25% design, which At-large Councilor Ben Wheeler and Ward 3 Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen put on the agenda January 8. Wheeler flagged "trade offs between the convenience of drivers from outside Somerville and the safety of Somerville residents, particularly children" at crossings like Otis Street, next to a playground. Ewen-Campen's argument for coordination: "If we have this group of advocates saying this and the City Council saying this and the mobility department, the mayor's office saying this, they're gonna tune that out." At-large Councilor Kristen Strezo called McGrath "the corridor of death."

The committee walked the letter point by point on March 16 and marked it work completed, 3-0. What is still unresolved:

Otis Street. PTAC wants a full signal where the pedestrian overpass is today; state volume warrants may block it. If so the city wants a rectangular rapid flashing beacon, not a pedestrian hybrid beacon ("HAWK"), because HAWKs go dark when inactive and let drivers proceed on flashing don't-walk; Schreiber cited a fatal Mystic Avenue crash involving one. Advocacy did win a raised crosswalk there — a first for MassDOT on a state highway. Ward 2 Councilor JT Scott: "I was told it was too late to make a change, but I'm gonna keep holding on to Councilor Nedergang's advice. It's never too late to correct a mistake."
Speed. PTAC asked for a 25 mph target; MassDOT set 30 in the functional design report. Today's 85th-percentile speeds run in the upper 30s to 40. A post-construction study could justify lowering it.
The median. The city is holding at a 10-foot minimum for mature trees, pedestrian refuges, and space for future bus platforms or a center-running busway, rather than narrowing it to widen sidewalks.
Local access. MassDOT's design cuts the motor-vehicle connection from southbound McGrath into Virginia and Aldrich Streets. Staff recommend waiting to see what that does before adjusting.

Buses are a live gap: the MBTA's Route 85, which absorbed the CT2 effective April 1, runs on Washington Street because there is no safe southbound stop on McGrath between Highland Avenue and Broadway. It moves onto the boulevard once the street is rebuilt.

Crossing guards, noise, and the pipes underneath

Ward 1 Councilor Matthew McLaughlin has pushed for state crossing guards on McGrath since January. On July 1, Crossing Guard Supervisor Salvy Cicero explained that McGrath is state-served — two guards at Pearl Street — and the state has denied a guard at Broadway, citing those guards and the Otis Street overpass; his own April count found 55 morning crossings, none of them children walking to East Somerville schools. Ward 4 Councilor Jesse Clingan's counter: the overpass rationale dies when the overpass does. Clingan also asked SPD to coordinate with State Police on red-light running at McGrath and Broadway.

On May 14 the Council approved, without referral, a resolution asking MassDOT to prevent extremely loud overnight construction — prompted by multi-night McGrath test boring that residents said made it impossible for children to sleep.

The city is spending ahead of the state. On April 23 it approved an $8,284,000 water main rehabilitation bond and a $2,000,000 sewer rehabilitation bond concentrated on the McGrath corridor, to replace century-old pipes before MassDOT digs — repaid through water and sewer bills. The long-delayed Union Square East planning study has been folded into a McGrath Boulevard planning study RFP that drew seven responses, with a consultant expected within two weeks of June 17 and a launch in FY27.

What's next

Fall 2026 — MassDOT's 25% design package for the Squires Bridge / Somerville Avenue Extension project goes in for review; feedback is open until then. The Pedestrian and Transit Advisory Committee, chaired by Alessandra Seiter with Vitor Pamplona as vice chair, spent 35 minutes of its September 17 meeting on its Design Review Subcommittee's draft comment letter on the bridge, focused on stairway connections to Brickbottom, crossing safety, transit connections and environmental mitigation (agenda); the committee plans to vote its own bylaw changes in October.
September 22, 2026 — The Urban Design Commission has a design review for 382 McGrath Highway on its agenda; the agenda does not say what the project is (agenda).
FY27 — Launch of the McGrath Boulevard planning study, which now carries the Union Square East planning work.
Early 2027 — Design public hearing on the bridge project.
Roughly spring 2027 — The boulevard's 75%/100% design milestone, described in March 2026 as about a year out.
Late 2027 — Construction bidding for the boulevard; 2028 for shovels. The bridge project's construction could start in 2030.
Undated — Gilman Square Neighborhood Council comments on the boulevard remain in Public Health and Public Safety; McLaughlin's follow-up with state Rep. Mike Connolly on crossing guards is outstanding.

The thread resolves at the 75%/100% design freeze — the last realistic moment for the city to win Otis Street signalization, a 25 mph target speed, and the sidewalk and median dimensions it wants. Related: other street and transit projects in motion, traffic calming and Vision Zero, Union Square.